Name of Project: MRSK. (Mitra Residential School Kachapaju)

Contact Information: Mr Chandrashekar Ray, MITRA, Christian Mission Hospital, Bissam Cuttack, Dist. Raygada Orissa. Ph: 06863-247505. Email : Dr. John Oommen: jco@myrealbox.com

Getting there: Get to Rayagada from Bhubaneshwar or Berhampur. Shared Jeep (Rs 20) to BissamCuttack. Everyone knows the hospital there

Previous Asha Volunteer visit: . None

Associated Chapter(s):. Evaluation visit for Asha Stars type project.

FCRA Clearance: Yes

School visit dates: 1-4 Mar 2004

Surprise Visit?: Kind of.

Visited by: Shriram Narasimhan (zshriram_un@yahoo.com)

Rayagada surprised me. After all the stories, I was expecting something exotically poor and here were bustling streets, cars, and some internet café’s – run by Andhra’ites from neighbouring AP.

At Rayagada, exactly 26 of us piled into and onto a mahindra jeep and stayed that way for the next 2 hrs, bumping along on a derelict state highway with steel and coal factories and still depleting forests on either side.

BissamCuttack is the block headquarters, a small place in between hills. The MRSK school is in village Kachapaju about 45 mins drive on a bumpy mud road with huge boulders. Area is thickly forested – where the locals haven’t been busy chopping. Bissam Cuttack gets its name from the word ‘Bishma Kotta’ or poisonous fort – so named because of the frequent malarial deaths. Initial railways construction teams in the 1920’s and 30’s were devastated by the parasite. Area comes under the ill famed KBK = Koraput – Bolangir – Kalahandi poverty basket region. Raygada has been recently carved out from Koraput. The area conjures up images of plenty and natural beauty and ‘living with nature’ in your mind till the spell is broken by the depressing human statistics. Very few of the villages around are approachable by road. Health and livelihoods is the major problem in the area.

The Kondh tribe, calling themselves the ‘Malkhond’ – from the hills. Root word ‘Malai’ meaning hill in Tamil. Language used is Kuvi, has some traces of dravidian tongues. Traditional hunters until recently practising shifting cultivation (introduced by the british). Small farmers, have 2-4 acres of land, sometimes on slopes, rain fed, get single crop, normally rice when there is water else grow ragi. Produce from the land is insufficient for a yr for an avg family of 5 and they thence take to clearing vast tracts of forest land of trees and sell the wood and also plant some ragi on the slopes. They make Rs 700 – 1000 @ yr from this, the only cash they earn, used for clothes, illness, and onther incidental expenses. Forest guards come checking once a yr and are taken care of with Rs30, some Mohua wine and chicken. Mortality rates were 100 @ 1000 live births till a few yrs back. Short and well built, the men are handsome with muscles rippling under dark sweaty skin in the plentiful sun, while only a few of the women are good looking. Hardly any of the households go for daily wage labour. Live in neat huts plastered sometimes with a little cement and coloured with some black and designs.

The ’91 census showed that the area had a growth rate of –8.2% (1981 pop = 79000 while 1991 pop = 73000 in about 300 villages). Literacy rate for the men is in single digits for the men and close to nil for the women in the predominantly adivasi populated area. All have BPL cards, seldom used for buying grain at Rs 5 @ kilo from the ration shops ‘too expensive’ – the secret behind those world-record breaking levels of grains in the FDI godowns of food-sufficient india. BPL cards are used only to buy some kerosene at Rs 13 @ liter once a while. In 3 of the 4 villages I visited, govt. hand pumps are in disrepair, people make do with a muddy stream that passes by, into which buffaloes also like to wade. In summer the stream dries up, they then go looking for water. Daily diet consists of Ragi with salt for breakfast and lunch, and some dal rice with potatoes or onions for dinner.

MITRA or Madsens Institute for tribal and rural advancement runs under the community health department of the Christian Hospital. Hospital has its beginnings in a small room from which a Danish missionary Dr Liz Madsen started work in 1955 when animals and hunters roamed about, there are shops selling VCD’s today. It has grown over time and is today a 150 bedded hospital, with various departments – pediatrics, gynecology, OPD, surgical rooms, ICU, etc, 50,000 patients treated per year, more than 500 surgeries @ year and a budget of close to Rs 2 crore per year 95 % of which is from patient fees. The hospital gets funding from various Christian church and evangelical bodies around the world for investment in new equipment, buildings etc. MITRA has 3 units : a) The MITRA project- which is primarily a health scheme covering 48 villages b) The MRSK residential school c) the MRTU – a training unit. The first scheme runs under some aid and interest from a corpus left behind by Dr Madsen. The second runs on individual donations and funds. The training unit is self sufficient. There is also a full fledged English medium school within the hospital campus- a the typical good Jesuit educational institution: uniforms, principals room, library, good labs and teachers in tie’s. I spent some time in a few classrooms here, the learning levels were good. There is also an Oriya medium school on campus.

Most villages here have, I would guess a govt school. Dysfunctional. For the same reasons. The region is remote, one needs a two wheeler to get to the villages that are approachable by road, for the rest one needs to walk for an hr or so. Sometimes, the villagers are disinterested in sending the kids. Education does not fit into their lives, their scheme of things, anywhere, in a predominantly subsistence based life style. So the govt teacher comes 3-4 times a week, when he does it is at about 11:00 am and then he stays for 2 hrs until lunch. The kids never come back after lunch (there’s more useful work to be done at home – taking the sheep out, gathering firewood, taking care of the younger ones, etc.). Seems the head of kachapaju village met Dr John and asked him where he studies. The Dr. explained the concept of a private school – paid for by the people, the villagers agreed, they built their own school. And quality education, they get at it.

* Each village also has its own ‘tuition’ center of sorts – each village has nominated a person who will teach the kids for 2 hrs every evening at the govt school building. This is for the kids who didn’t make it into MrsK. MITRA pays the 200 @ mth for these masters. Read suggestion on improving this below.

* There are no other NGO’s in these 48 villages.

The school . MRSK or Mrs’ K a fully residential school from grades 1-5 came up after the leaders from about 16 villages approached MITRA to set up a ‘private school’ for them since the govt. one’s were dysfunctional. Save the Children fund UK promised to come in with funds if MITRA could build and demonstrate a running school and then eventually shied away. Situated in Village Kachapaju about 7 kms away from a place where you can find overloaded jeeps to ferry you to bissamcuttack.

MITRA already has a good local presence with its health teams of nurses has small sub-stations every few villages and a supervisor who keeps roaming about. Besides, there are community health workers, village ayah’s etc who take care of small ailments. The Christian Hospital has some kind of a glorious reputation of ~ 50 yrs in the area. The school serves people from 16 villages – pop = 2900.

Set in a hill slope, there are, ofcourse plenty of trees. Consists of about 4 classrooms, an office room, staff room, living hall for the girls, small room for the teachers with 2 beds and a family accomodation – 2 rooms for married teachers and 3 unused toilets – since water needs to be fetched from the pump 50 metres downhill. Buildings are cement structures with Iron-GI sheets for the roof. Cooking shed and a handpump. No electricity, make do with about 12 kerosene lamps and 1 petro-max lamp, no solar lamps.

The school has a principal, Chandrashekhar Ray, a young, confident and competent person, until recently a teacher at the BissamCuttack english medium school. He’s at the school every day (come’s by 2 wheeler), knows his work and seems to have a good understanding of the issues at hand. The school is lucky to have him. He has a Masters in political science and another in social work, and is well known amongst the locals - judging by the number of hello’s he got when we walked about in the villages.

This is a ‘model’ tribal school of sorts, they’ve had visits from the collector – he sanctioned a road leading to the school, the district education inspector and his entire team of 20. Food served is nutritious, dal rice and vegetables.

Community contributon: Land was donated by a local. Villagers formed the ‘Malkhon Anchalik Sangh’ and they run a joint operation of sorts with MITRA. About 350 villagers from 16 villages gave 1 months free labour for the plastering, foundation, filling and the construction. Besides, some also made bricks locally and supplied them. This besides, they come back for a day every year when the school asks them to help out with some required work. The Hostelers pay Rs 350 @ yr as fees while the day boarders pay Rs 100. The money comes in bits and pieces and sometimes, in kind. In some ways, this is a community project with the external entity – MITRA providing the funds over and beyond the paying capacity of the villagers.

Use the DPEP books, which are largely pictorial and much better than the earlier dry state govt. books. Year 1 is taught in the local language Kuvi, thhey switch to Oriya after that. The teachers seem to be also using some self made materials.

* Holidays have been decided by the villagers. There are 60 holidays a yr- 30 for the local harvest festival, 15 for shivratri and 15 for something else. No holidays for diwali, christmas or other usual school holidays. Weekly off is on Tuesday – local market day or haat when parents may sometimes get sweets for the kids. Some parents meet the kids on Tuesday, and in the case of girls, as I witnessed apply oil and comb the hair.

5 – 6 am: wake up and ablutions | 6:30 – 7 : cleanliness | 7 –8 : study time | 8:00 – 8:30 bathing | 8:30 – 9: newspaper reading | 9:- 9:30 breakfast | 9:30 – 9:40 – get ready for school | 9:40 – 10:00 assembly – discuss personal issues, problems and their solutions | 10 – 12:50: classes | lunch | 2:00 – 4:00 classes | 4 – 5 : leisure | 5- 5:30 fresh’n up | 5:30 – 6: prayer | 6 – 7:30 study time | 7:30 – 8: free time, play, day dream, etc. | 8:00 – dinner | 9:00 – 10 : study time for senior students | 10:00 – kerosene lamp lights out.

Very confident. Obviously used to having visitors both Indian and foreign, the kids had a barrage of questions in Oriya for me which I struggled to grasp. Learning levels are good, math skills vary from good to poor. I checked for the standard operations, addition, subtraction, etc, with some mixing up of place value, smaller numbers subtracted from larger one’s etc, varying the difficulty level across grades. About 50% of the kids pointed out my deliberate mistakes.

Language was a constraint, I couldn’t check as much as I would have liked to. They can all read and write and are also comfortable with roman numerals – they learn oriya numerals. Enthusiasm in class is high, kids are unfazed by tough questions, and the girls especially refuse point blank to attempt problems they are uncomfortable with.

Neatly dressed in uniforms – they get 2 pairs a yr + a bag and books, and other essentials. Grade1: M 13; F 13

Grade2: M13; F13

Grade3: M14;F3 (they got only 6 girls that yr, 3 have since dropped out)

Grade4: M16;F16

Grade5: M13;F12

126 present out of 132 enrolled, 92 are boarders, rest are day scholars from villages within walking distance.

* There is no test for admission. Villagers have come out with some rules. 50% seats reserved for girls. Villages close by get 1 seat per 10 houses while the boarders have 1 per 20 houses. Admission is by draw of lots. Yearly intake is ~ 32 students, MITRA estimates 60 live births @ yr in 16 villages, so 50% of population comes into the school. Kids sleep under medicated mosquito nets and undergo monthly health check up’s from the nurses.

Spitting serves a social as well as anthropological function. It is a way of identifying yourself with the tribe and connecting with your ancestors – besides wetting the parches earth in bits and pieces. The kids spit once every few seconds so that on a holiday – Tuesday by noon, the grounds are soaked in human spit. Each kid is given a weekly supply of soap.

Its been 5 yrs since the school started so this was the first year that they had a batch passing out. The pioneers, so to speak. Inspite of admission being a lottery, some bright chaps turn out. 6/20 students secured an A grade in the DPEP exams and qualified for various govt schools, the navodaya schools (the best), and govt ‘model’ schools – special schools for the tribal areas – after clearing the entrance exams. The school has been getting very good feedback from the teachers in the new schools. Unfortunately, they were denied admission in some of them on the grounds that MRsk does not have a NOC yet- the clerks won’t move without bribes and MITRA won’t pay any – officially atleast. MITRA has been placing the kids in a cross section of schools, so when they send some juniors next year, the newcomers would have mentors in their schools. It seems that once the NOC is done a lot of the kids passing out , if willing be placed for higher education in various places. The school has a formal feel and I’m sure Mr Ray would see to it that willing kids get to go higher.

One word only. Dedicated. There is no one to supervise these guys. (The principal Chandrashekar ray spends 50%of his time at the MITRA project in BissamCuttack). But the teacher keep doing their jobs, They are hardworking and seem to care for their work. Belonging to the same tribe as the kids, there are 4 of them and some are class 12 pass while 1 is a graduate. They work from 7 in the morning to 10 in the night. The job doesn’t end with teaching, you have to run the entire school from before dawn to after dusk. They seem to have made up for their lack of formal training with some self-improvisation and this seems to have heightened their pedagogical perception. Each makes a daily teaching plan every week and this is approved by the principal and he follows it to a T. – there were ‘extra’ classses on the Tuesday holiday when I got there since some were missed during exam preparation. They themselves studies in various govt ashram schools around.

They have been around 5 yrs with the school, some of the kids are slow learners and the teachers make it a point to spend extra time with them. Teachers get free boarding and lodging, all food is cooked by firewood.

Salaries: Rs 2231@ mth – linked to salaries for the English and Oriya medium schools in BissamCuttack. There is a compulsory 12% PF and LIC scheme, which is great. The teachers went for an exposure visit arranged by Dr John to the south where theu visited other projects and initiatives. The teachers had to pay Rs 500 @ each and the rest was arranged by the good doctor.

At night, when we were sitting in the enveloping stillness, staring into nothingness, listening to the noise that absolute quietness brings about, with the trees closing into our space one of them tells me "it was hard in the beginning to get used to the place. We are used to it now. And the school has to do well"

Students fees/contribution : 8%

Hospital Staff contribution: 8%

Individual donor’s : ~ 85%.

There are about 25 regular donor’s every year. Some pay 5000 for one child. There are some who support 10 children every year. Money comes in fits and starts some from people in India, some from abroad but they manage – have been for 5 yrs.

** MITRA has bought 8 acres of land and hopes to use the income from the produce to run the school.

Maintains various registers, tracking register, attendance, marks earned, etc etc.

Food for kids: 285000

Personal materials (clothes, bags, study materials): 55000

Salaries, wages, allowances: 250000

PF Contribution : 34000

HRA: 1800

Electricity: (principal living in BissamCuttack) 3300

Study Materials: 25000

Sports: 2000

Printing, stationary, postage: 6000

Transportation: 2000

Health: 6000

Teacher training: 10000

Repair and maint: 15000

Utensils: 3000

Misc: 5000

TOTAL 703100.00 @ year. I checked the budget, its fine.

Besides causing 2 small chaps and one little girl to cry with my stupid antics, I didn’t cause much trouble.

• If Asha decides to support, they should continue seeking funds from friends. The money saved (~ 5 lakhs pa) could be used to build a corpus and in a few yrs there should be enough to run the school.

• Books should be got free from DPEP. Ray tells me that when he goes to them the govt officials tell him the books stock is exhausted. However the same are available on the market for double the cost in black. Where will this reeking corruption stop?

• Try getting food materials under the mid-day meals scheme from the Govt.

• Strengthen the NFE’s – with more training, and salary for the teachers. The NFE should fill as many gaps from the dysfunctional govt teacher as possible. Select the best of children only instead of the random selection currently employed. For this, start getting kids into the NFE’s at a younger age and then evaluate them for the MRsk admission – you have a base yr spent at the NFE to judge with.

• Tie up with other NGO;s in education and development – for livelihoods – cashew plantation, water availability, etc. (They already have womens SHG’s here)

• Allow the kids from MRSk and the english/oriya schools to mix. This can be easily done in a days programme, say twice a year for a few grades, once at the MRSK campus and one at the bigger schools campus in BissamCuttack.

• Mock village panchayat :- play-act various roles, the people, the leader, local politician, panchayat president, the outside contractor, etc. Will give them a sense of belonging and ideas of the issues involved in village life.

• Introduce grades 4 and 5 to problems in the area – water, de-forestation, health and livelihoods. Can have dramas and interactive sessions, with the kids proposing the solutions.

• The kids defecate all around. Dry composting toilet could be used – at least when it isn’t raining. Villagers labour could be used, and the cost would be Rs 0.

• Water from the hand-pump contains large quantities of Iron, which gets oxidised after pumped out, forming a thin layer of rust no the water surface, making the water smelly and foul. Used for cooking and drinking. Although ray told me the doctors have told them its okay, I think that is a great amount of rust to be ingesting – over 5 yrs for the kids. They could allow the water to oxidise and simply filter it using a clean cotton clth folded 8 times – known to prevent even cholera causing bacteria.

• Making different shapes to play with – airplanes, small ships, etc paper with cardboard, and butter paper.

• Ask each kid to plant a tree sapling and take care of it for 5 yrs.

Christian Push: Christian Mission Hospital, funding from World council of churches, Lutheran world services, various evangelical bodies, started by a missionary is there any trace of .. ?.

No, no evidence of any Christian leanings of any kind. The hospital charter makes it clear that the hospital is for everyone. At the school, there is no trace of anything. I drew a cross on the board and asked them what it was. Addition sign, they replied. I drew a trident (Trishul, Dr Togadia style). Sign of the Khshatriya’s they said (most of them are that;). Islamic symbol : Moon with a small Star they said. More, the school is an offshoot by the villagers demands. There have been conversions, but only during the last 2-3 yrs – by ‘people who come form the other side of hills’. MITRA and the hospital are as secular as you can get. Basic idea is good work for the underprivileged in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Fair enough.

• MITRA is a unit of the Big hospital in bissamcuttack. In the event of a crisis the hospital will bail them out. They have been running the school on donations from own sources friends and well wishers – a lot of doctors, friends and classmates of Dr John,.. These funds can be used for further growth. They can draw on resources of the english and oriya schools in bissamcuttack. Besides they also have the good will of the people from the 5 decades work done in health. The Hospital and nurses makes sure the kids are born safe and healthy, the school picks up and educates them. All we need is a college and a MITRA factory and a MITRA old age home to complete the cycle J .
• Passouts are ‘our boys’ – the school is not imposed by someone from outside. They’ll follow up with the kids. You should have some graduates soon.

• This is a very good start, alongwith the govt ashram schools. Only, the learning atmosphere is much better and the kids are learning to view life through the education they receive here for 5 yrs rather than through firewood. They are the first generation to be educated. 40 yrs late.

• ‘We are looking at these children as the pioneers and future leaders’, says Ray. They will lead their people, not only politically, but intellectually as well. Collectors, district officials etc. Asha should have a long standing relationship and work with them towards improving and growing the school, I can see something coming up for WAH funding in a couple of years. Asha should stay with them till such a time as they get some secure and permanent funding.

• The people behind the project Dr John, Mr. Ray, etc are all competent, honest and highly qualified. In some ways Mrsk school is a part of the MITRA project – looking for overall development in the area – but restricted in some ways to health only right now. When they do get themselves started on other aspects of development, the school will be an integral part of the set-up. Working with this group should be a collaborative process – and rewarding for the proposed Asha stars and lend itself well.
• Mrsk has some well chalked out future plans – to improve infrastructure and expand.

• Highly recommended.

Tailpiece: A poster stuck on the walls in Bissam Cuttack reads ‘New Daya Nayak Bakery. Birthday cakes for the first time in your village !’- in English. And this is the poverty basket of India with 5% literacy.

We met about 30 villagers at night, their headman was also present. Dialogues relevant to asha:

Q: Why did you need this MrsK school? Ans (their leader): I once asked Dr John where he studied. He said at a pvt school. I asked him what that means. Dr John said it was a school paid for by the people. So I asked the Dr. to help us and we decided to build our own school with whatever means we had. The Govt school in our village started in the 1970’s. There is not a single matric in this village. We have seen hardly any masters who come here and teach.

Q: Considering that most of the kids would become farmers what is the point getting educated? Ans: they can read and understand things. Education is good. One gets smarter and can access many things. We barely make enough to survive. We want our children to study and learn something.

• This village contributed together and got itself an electricity connection which lights up the neat and clean street where the houses face each other. No individual house has a connection yet. The people pay for the common bill. They have a cemented street. In these 48 villages, the people take the panchayat contract themselves, not allowing any outside contractor to come in and share the work and profits.
• Here’s an example of how this could work: people from the neighbouring village take the contract for Rs 25,000 worth of work. Officials come, say it will cost only Rs 17000 (the panchayat appointed petty contractor would have got Rs 25000). Villagers say okay, dig the soil, break the granite with hand and hammer – with their out of school children lending a hand (like the 10 yr old girl I saw, bashing away at the rock), and complete the road. Nice. They get paid in grain. Villagers realise it’s only worth Rs 12,000 in the market. That’s down from the Rs 25,000 they should have been paid. No profits, some houses are in a loss. Atleast they got a cement road.